Anyway after finding lunch, we headed back to the train station to decide what to do next. Our general plan was to head to Brisbane, but we couldn't decide if we should do a hop-on hop-off bus or train. After looking at maps and prices and thinking about it more, we decided to just take the deal they were offering and take the train straight to Brisbane. We had no idea where a good place to stop would be, plus we just don't have enough time to see 'everything'. There looks like there's plenty to do around Brisbane. I'm sure we'll be kept busy.
The train left at 4:12 yesterday and arrived at 6:30 this morning. Since then, we've been wondering parks and trying to decide on a place to stay. Lots of parks around, so it should be fun.
-Miranda
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Today we woke up and were hoping to get to the zoo when it opened. I checked work quick and realize it was 7:30am.... We completely forgot it was daylight savings... So, we walked relatively slowly to the ferry and were there 20 minutes before it was leaving for the zoo.
We had a fun time walking around. We went to the seal show and saw a lot of babies. They currently have 3 baby elephants, young chimps, a baby gorilla, baby and young wallabies, all sorts of fun animals to watch.
We were pretty tired after walking around the zoo all day, but we found some sushi and gelato on the way home from the ferry.
-Miranda
The Opera House from the ferry.
Leopard Seal. Apparently they are the only zoo to have them in captivity.
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Since we arrived in Sydney, we've mostly been just wondering around. We walked around downtown quite a bit. It's mostly ritzy shopping. We had a heck of a time finding decent food.
For our first full day we decided to check out more of the city. Our hostel is near the Botanic Gardens, so we headed that way. Unfortunately, I forgot to grab my camera, but I can't see what I'm taking pictures of anyway.
The gardens are where the fruit bats 'sleep'. I put sleep in quotes because they don't really appear to be sleeping. They super noisy and crawling between the branches. It's super crazy. When the sun goes down they're flying everywhere.
Anyway, we headed towards the Opera House, since it was nearby. Not quite as many people around there as I expected, but it was pretty neat looking. We stopped to have some fancy sushi nearby before heading off. From there, we basically just walked and looked around. We were going to get another Vodafone broadband card for internet, but apparently we needed two forms of ID or our passport. Since neither of us had our passport on us, that had to wait until the next day.
For dinner we found a completely vegan shop. It was very good. Fortunately, there is one closer to where we're staying, so we had lunch there this afternoon.
We're spending this evening working and trying to figure out what we're doing while in Australia.
-Miranda
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We arrived in Christchurch and did our best trying to sell the van. It took about 4 days of ads, some a bit desperate, but we ended up selling it for $1100. It was quite a loss, but at least we weren't stuck there for a couple weeks trying to sell it.
The next flight to Sydney was the next morning, so we had to decide what to do for sleeping that night. We weren't sure if you could sleep in the airport until we stumbled upon the site "A Guide to Sleeping in Airports" http://www.sleepinginairports.net/. So funny. Anyway, we stayed at the park we were at until around midnight. We then got a ride from the guy that bought our van. There were so many people in the airport! It was crazy. People sleeping everywhere.
We tried sleeping for a bit, but realized it wasn't going to happen, so we just watched some stuff on the computer until the airport opened up at 4am. We tried to sleep on the plane, but that wasn't overly successful either.
If we booked with the hostel we found for at least 3 nights we got a cheap shuttle ride from the airport, so we decided to go for it. We hung out at the airport for another few hours and then called for the shuttle. We made it without a problem and are in a room with two other guys. Fortunately they are both pretty quiet.
-Miranda
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We drove south of Picton for one reason only. To go whale watching. Off of Kaikoura is the main place to see Sperm Whales. There is a deep canyon (about 1000 meters deep) where they dive to feed. We headed out and they spotted a whale pretty quickly. The whale we saw, we ended up seeing him 3 times, was named Tiaki. They sit at the surface for 5-10 minutes, filling up on oxygen, then dive for, normally 45-50 minutes to feed.
After seeing him a couple times, we went over to check out the Dusky Dolphins. They were very fun to watch. They're pods are typically around 100-500 dolphins. We watched them for quite a while before heading towards some rocks where Fur Seals were hanging out. We watched some seal pups for a bit, then headed back out towards the canyon and got another view of Tiaki before he dove again.
We're back at the free spot just 28km from Kaikoura for the night since we're both tired and don't really feel like driving.
-Miranda
Tiaki's tail.
A Dusky Dolphin.
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